New to HBT and have a query...

[BenBuzzkill]

Hi everyone,

I'm new to homebrew talk and fairly new to home brewing. I've done about 4 kits thus far that all turned out great. Most recently I did my first mash kit which required grains to be stooped and then a boil etc. I had high hopes for this kit and believe I followed the instructions correctly. However upon sampling a bottle after 4 weeks it tastes, weak and watery and very tasteless. Now I'm pretty sure it's not the skit that's at fault as it's supposed to be an American style IPA and there were a lot of hops going in there but they're not present in the flavour so I'm wondering where did I go wrong!?

I wrote a blog post on the process of doing this kit which can be found at the following URL:
http://realcraftybeer.tumblr.com/

Some of my theories as to what may have had a detrimental effect on the finished result include...

Although I thought it had I wasn't 100% sure fermentation had finished when I bottled the beer.

I didn't really stir the hops in at all in the boil.

My boiling pan was only 10 litres and by the time I had it on a rolling boil for 40 minutes there was only about 6.5 litres left to add to the fermenter.

If anyone knows where I went wrong I would love to know!

Cheers!

 

[UnDeadPresident]

I've read your blog post, and I can't seem to see anything overt that would cause a lack of flavor. Your times and temps (I assume you are using Celsius) appear to be about right. Typically your bittering hops (the first ones) will be in a bit longer (usually 60min+) to allow for more isomerization of the alpha acids, which will make for a more bitter beer.

About your hypotheses for the final result:

1) The fermentation was likely about finished off since you got the same gravity reading a day apart. If it wasn't finished, it wouldn't have likely changed much more and the resulting flavor change would have been minimal, or even unnoticeable.

2) The rolling boil should have agitated the hops enough to impart their flavor/bitterness, so stirring shouldn't have had that great of an effect on the finished product.

3) The boil off is a standard part of the process and shouldn't have much impact, other than to concentrate your wort. 35% boil off in 40min, is a bit high (I'm used to seeing ~10%/hour for most setups) but that shouldn't affect flavor other than maybe to increase caramelization of the sugars in the wort, which would have the opposite effect of what you are describing.

Sorry to say, it looks like you did everything right, more or less, and wound up with a bland beer. :/ It may come down to old ingredients; Can you speak to their freshness at all? Anybody else see something that I may have missed?

Also, welcome to the fold. I hope this experience hasn't put you off homebrewing, it can be very fun even with the occasional setback.

 

[BenBuzzkill]

Can't speak for the freshness of the kit I'm afraid.

Despite being a little disappointed with this batch it hasn't put me off. A few of the simpler kits I've done I've been really pleased with the results so know I can fall back on those for a good pint.
The St Peter's India Pale Ale being my favourite thus far.

However I'm still keen to try some more involved stuff as I'd like to brew a US style IPA and maybe dabble in some dry hopping. Not entirely sure where to start though as my local homebrew shop don't seem to appreciate those types of beer so much. They're more into strong British ales.

 

[BrewerBear]

However I'm still keen to try some more involved stuff as I'd like to brew a US style IPA and maybe dabble in some dry hopping. Not entirely sure where to start though as my local homebrew shop don't seem to appreciate those types of beer so much. They're more into strong British ales.

Check out the recipe section here,you can find a lot of proven recipes then go into your brewshop with the ingredient list.

 

[Mirkin]

Welcome to the great obsession!! Your blog and steps looked good, shoulda been fine - sometimes things just don't work :-(

Look forwards to your next brew!!! Depending in your options try to suss out where you can get your freshest/best stored ingredients from. Stale ingredients and bad sanitation are your worst 2 enemies ;P

The recipe section here is pretty awesome, also BYO magazine has great recipes too, almost all are presented with extract, partial and full mash recipes.

 

[SeraphX117]

The great obsession is right. I get a little ocd when I have an empty primary.

 

[BenBuzzkill]

The great obsession is right. I get a little ocd when I have an empty primary.

Ha, I'm only 4 kits in and I think I'm getting the same way. The weather here (Leeds, UK) is still too cold for me to ferment in my cellar (with a brew belt) and it's been winding me right up having nowt on the go!

 

[BenBuzzkill]

Can anyone recommend a good US IPA recipie for a newbie like me to have a go at?

I saw a recipe for a Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA (love that beer) clone but it looked pretty involved!

 

[UnDeadPresident]

Stone Ruination is a great IPA. Here's a recipe that Yooper developed, that isn't super involved, and looks like you can probably make on your set up. Just follow the 2.5 gallon instructions at the bottom of the first post, and you should be all set to have your palate wrecked.

 

[sweetcell]

welcome!

However I'm still keen to try some more involved stuff as I'd like to brew a US style IPA and maybe dabble in some dry hopping. Not entirely sure where to start though as my local homebrew shop don't seem to appreciate those types of beer so much. They're more into strong British ales.

perhaps you could order some through an online shop? i'm not familiar with british online shops, but there must be someone who sells "american IPA" type kits. alternately, pick out a recipe from the recipe section here (or find one online) and order up the individual ingredients.

The weather here (Leeds, UK) is still too cold for me to ferment in my cellar (with a brew belt)

how cold is it in your cellar? many ales will ferment nicely and cleanly at 15*C, so even if you're below that the brew belt should allow you to at least hit that temp... let us know.

 

[unionrdr]

Reading your blog now,& looking at the pics,the crush on your steeping grains looks a bit course. Like they could've been crushed better maybe? Rinsing the remaining LME out of the cans is usually done to get all that goodness out of them. Chiling the wort quickly (in 20 minutes or less) is mostly to prevent/reduce chill haze come fridge time.
And 17C equalling 62.6 was within range of a yeast like US-05,but about 2 degrees too low for one like Cooper's ale yeast. So on average you were pretty close to a good low range yeast temp. Looking up the information from the manufacturer of the yeaast will give a lot of useful information.
Like best ferment temp range,how to rehydrate,etc.
And use a bottling wand to fill the bottles. Fill to the top & pull up on the wand to close the pin valve & stop flow. Removing the wand leaves the perfect head space by way of volume displacement. & get a cheap digital scale to weigh priming sugar from this priming calculator; http://www.tastybrew.com/calculators/priming.html
Boil 2C of water for a few minutes,then stir in measured amount of sugar till dissolved & the water looks clear again. cover & allow to cool abit before adding to a bottling bucket with an Italian red & white spigot. It has a recess on the spout to fit the 3/8" tubbing typicaly used with bottling wands.
This will get you bottles of beer that are more evenly carbonated from bottle to bottle. 3-4 weeks at warm room temp,then at least 1 week fridge time to goet co2 into solution & settle out any chill haze.

 

[SeraphX117]

I would say it was old ingredients...I got a kit one time that I followed everything exactly/ (and thanks to HBT) I kept very good records. It tasted weak-BMC status....but then I re-made the same recipe from stuff i bought a my LHBS and it was delicious. If you can find other homebrewers around you..see what kits they use

 

[BenBuzzkill]

Thanks for the replies everyone.

UnDeadPresident I took that recipe to my local brew shop and unfortunately I have to say they talked me out of brewing it based on the strength.

I'd like to have a go at brewing something more akin to Dogfish Head's 60 minute IPA, ie hoppy but still around the 6% mark. I took the recipe for that in too but unfortunately they didn't stock a couple of the hops listed.

Was a bit of a flawed trip really as I just came away with a St Peters IPA kit which I like but is just a standard 'throw everything in a bucket for a couple of weeks' type kit!

 

[sweetcell]

I took the recipe for that in too but unfortunately they didn't stock a couple of the hops listed.

the shop should have been able to suggest substitutes. some people will get all purist and can a whole recipe if they can't get one hop, personally i'm willing to take a similar hop and run with it.

 

[BenBuzzkill]

Yeah, I'm going to give it another shot. I've found a few more recipes I like the sound of now and hopefully the more helpful of the two guys will be there next time!

 

[BenBuzzkill]

I have another query actually regarding brewing recipes. Is it acceptable in every instance to boil approx half the final volume and then top up the fermenter with water like I did with the partial mash kit I wrote about in my blog (and mentioned earlier)? Or is it only specific situations where it's acceptable to do this?

 

[BrewerBear]

It is not ideal but we brew with what equipment we have.If all you can boil is half of it then go for it.I have brew the Stone Ruination(all grain) that was linked to above and it is fantastic.

 

[sweetcell]

Is it acceptable in every instance to boil approx half the final volume and then top up the fermenter with water like I did with the partial mash kit I wrote about in my blog (and mentioned earlier)? Or is it only specific situations where it's acceptable to do this?

the general rule is boil as much as you can. the ideal is to boil the full amount, but if you can't do the entire batch then boil as much as possible. any recipe will benefit from boiling more of the liquid, but be aware that boiling more = need slightly less hops, since your hop extraction will increase with larger volumes.

 

[Mirkin]

As the other guys have said its best to do biggest boil volume possible. Hop utilization is a big factor with volume of wort and also the concentration (specific gravity) starts to be an issue for your amounts of hops too. The greater your volume boiling the smaller the amount of boil-off you will have, so your error margins are more forgiving as well. If you're pot wont support a full 5 gal batch maybe consider doing smaller batches? Less beer in each batch but a lot more variety and experimentation possible while you sort things out also lower batch costs.

 

[BenBuzzkill]

I might try doing some half batches in that case!

My boiling pot is approx 10 liters (just over 2.5 US Gallons) so that should work out fine.

My next question is, how do I cool everything down to pitching temperature if I'm not adding cold water? Do I some new kit or are there techniques you can use? Sitting the fermenter in cold water for example?

Cheers!

 

[Mirkin]

When batches are going to be that small just pop the lid on it and place it in a water bath, then when the temp gets down around 40•C start using ice to push down further.

My personal experience is that chilling like this is only worthwhile doing for 10L or less, 15L is starting to get too big for fast chilling in a bath IMO, that's my cut off point for going no-chill into my cubes. Haven't got a chiller and don't like the thought of using so much water anyways, no-chill works fantastically for me for many reasons.

 

[Glynn]

And use a bottling wand to fill the bottles. Fill to the top & pull up on the wand to close the pin valve & stop flow. Removing the wand leaves the perfect head space by way of volume displacement. & get a cheap digital scale to weigh priming sugar from this priming calculator; http://www.tastybrew.com/calculators/priming.html
Boil 2C of water for a few minutes,then stir in measured amount of sugar till dissolved & the water looks clear again. cover & allow to cool abit before adding to a bottling bucket with an Italian red & white spigot. It has a recess on the spout to fit the 3/8" tubbing typicaly used with bottling wands.
This will get you bottles of beer that are more evenly carbonated from bottle to bottle. 3-4 weeks at warm room temp,then at least 1 week fridge time to goet co2 into solution & settle out any chill haze.

^^^^^ this right here. make your life easier. get a bottling bucket and a wand. i use a 6 gal bucket and fill it with sanitizer and use it to sanitize my bottles and stuff. the bucket will hold 12 bottles no problem. the other thing i do is i place my bottling bucket on the kitchen counter right over my dishwasher. open the door of the machine,add a 3" piece tubing to the spigot and insert the wand and push the bottles up into the wand. this way overflow from filling goes into the machine.

 

[sweetcell]

My next question is, how do I cool everything down to pitching temperature if I'm not adding cold water? Do I some new kit or are there techniques you can use? Sitting the fermenter in cold water for example?

i used to use my bathtub to chill my pot, but a big sink would work too. fill once with just water and dunk the pot in. swirl very lightly to get a little movement in there. once temps have evened out, replace water and add ice to the second round.

getting down to pitching temps with this method can take a while (on bad days it's taken me over an hour), so here's a trick that not everyone is going to agree with: take some distilled or purified water from the store, sanitize a plastic container by soaking it for several minutes in Star San, fill with water, put on lid and freeze (i suppose you could use water you've boiled and cooled while keeping it covered/sealed). after the second bath with the ice cube, carefully add your block of distilled/purified ice directly to the wort. it helps to run some water on the outside of the plastic container to thaw out the edges, but wipe that water off once you're done to make sure none of it drips into the beer. obviously, do not touch the ice with your hands. this method does introduce some risk, but i've had good luck with it. it's important to be careful and only add "safe ice" to your wort.

i've since moved to using an immersion chiller and i can't imagine ever going back to the water+ice bath method. you can either buy an IC or build one (check out HBT or youtube for guidance). general info: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/Chiller